Page 4 of To Love and to Loathe
Diana took a breath, attempting to calm herself. Willingham possessed the infuriating ability to rile her without even trying to, and so it was perhaps not entirely surprising that the next words out of her mouth were spoken before she had time to even properly considerthem. “I’ll wager you’ll be married within the year. I could find you a bride in three snaps.”
Willingham laughed out loud at that. “That would be money in my pocket, Lady Templeton.”
“Then you’ll take the wager?” Diana pressed. “And you’ll allow me to send a parade of marriageable misses in your direction?”
“Why not?” Willingham asked with the misplaced confidence so typical of his sex. “I somehow think I’ll be able to resist the temptation. What shall we make the bet?”
Diana paused, considering; if she was going to do the thing, she might as well go all in, so to speak. “One hundred pounds.” She stared directly into Willingham’s eyes as she spoke, daring him to balk at such an exorbitant sum; he paused for the merest fraction of a second.
“Done,” he said briskly, then extended his hand. “Shall we shake on it?”
Considering that she had just bet the man a sum that would pay a good number of her servants’ annual salaries, it was slightly absurd thatnowwas the moment she hesitated, but she was not used to shaking a man’s hand like an equal; she was more accustomed to men hovering over her hand in excessive displays of gallantry, attempting to catch a glimpse of her bosom. Nevertheless, she extended her hand and shook his firmly. His grip was strong and surprisingly reassuring; the latter was not generally an adjective she would have applied to anything about Willingham.
And so it was settled: Willingham would be married within a year, or Diana would pay him one hundred pounds. Diana would freely admit that agreeing to this wager had not, perhaps, been her most well-considered decision. Now that she’d challenged him before their friends, she could hardly admit that she thought the idea ofWillingham marrying in the next twelve months to be unlikely in the extreme. Nevertheless, it might be good for a laugh, introducing Willingham to every unmarried lady of her acquaintance at every social event for the next year. That alone would be worth the loss of one hundred pounds.
Still, nothing terribly serious might have come of it had she not, less than an hour later, encountered Willingham’s grandmother.
The Dowager Marchioness of Willingham was something of a legend among theton. Widowed for decades, she lived in London year-round and was admired and feared in almost equal measure. Her sharp tongue had skewered more than one reputation, and she had somehow performed the magic trick of saying whatever she liked to whomever she chose, without losing an ounce of her social power.
Naturally, Diana adored her—though she could not say she was entirely pleased to see her at the moment. Diana had just returned from a trip to the retiring room with Violet and Emily; Violet had vanished in search of her husband, and Emily had promised a dance to a blushing, stammering young buck just down from Oxford and clearly terrified to be dancing with one of the most beautiful ladies of theton. Diana consulted her own dance card, realizing that she had promised this dance to Audley. Given the determined expression on Violet’s face when she had gone off in search of him, Diana hardly thought it likely that he would be appearing to claim this dance.
Instead, she made her way around the room, stopping to chat with several ladies of her acquaintance and to gaze flirtatiously at several gentlemen. Henry Cavendish, who was the second son of an earl and a thoroughly disreputable rake, had caught her eye and just begun to make his way through the crowd toward her, a promising smile playing at the corners of his mouth, when she felt her elbow seized in a strong grip.
“Lady Templeton, I’d advise you to reconsider that one.”
Diana turned, recognizing the voice even before she caught sight of its owner. “Lady Willingham,” she said, giving a curtsey. “I cannot imagine what you possibly mean.”
Jeremy’s grandmother was dressed in a demure evening gown of lilac silk, her diminutive figure held in rigidly proper posture. Her white hair was swept smoothly back in an elegant coiffure, a few curls framing her face, and she was in possession of a fan that Diana personally felt to be doing more work to allow its owner to gossip freely than as a cooling instrument.
“Don’t play coy with me, my dear girl,” the dowager marchioness said severely. “Young Cavendish is trouble, mark my words—his father must have counted his blessings many a time that that idiot was born the younger twin by a few minutes. Always felt twins a bit unnatural,” she added, shaking her head in disapproval at the very notion. “Too many babies at once, if you ask me.”
“It is a pity our heavenly father did not think to consult you before coming up with such an arrangement,” Diana agreed.
“That’s quite enough of that, now,” the dowager marchioness said, frowning. “You’re as bad as my grandson.”
“Did mine ears detect the sound of my name?” came Willingham’s voice from somewhere to Diana’s left. Stifling an internal groan, she turned, watching as he sauntered toward them, placing a kiss on his grandmother’s cheek that one could only accurately describe as smug. “About to describe my many charms?” he asked sunnily, a brief nod of his head his only acknowledgment of Diana’s presence.
“It would make for a rather short conversation,” Diana said sweetly.
“Lady Templeton likes to flatter me,” Willingham confided to his grandmother in conspiratorial tones.
“Over before it even had a chance to begin,” Diana continued, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
“If you’re finding it so difficult to describe my many charming qualities, I wonder that you were so confident that I’d be married this time next year.”
Like a hunting dog detecting a scent, the dowager marchioness’s attention—which had wandered slightly toward a number of couples in close proximity to them—snapped onto her grandson, razor-sharp.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked in tones of barely concealed glee.
“Er,” Willingham said, clearly intelligent enough—just—to sense danger.
“I wagered Lord Willingham that he’d be married within a year,” Diana explained cheerfully. It was worth every penny she stood to lose, just to see Willingham squirming under his grandmother’s piercing gaze.
“Did you, now?” the dowager marchioness asked slowly, a speculative gleam coming to her eye. “What a positively delightful notion.”
“I should note,” Willingham said, seeming to feel the need to exert some sort of control over the direction the conversation had taken, “that I was quite happy to take that bet. Not considering myself in any great danger, you understand.”
“Yes, dear,” his grandmother said absently, patting his shoulder as one might pat a dog begging for attention. “That is what men always say.”
